The lure of a good claypot rice is irresistible. The combination of tender chicken, salted fish, and Chinese sausage mixed with fluffy steamed rice contrasted with crunchy rice crust is the ultimate comfort food! However, the lack of a claypot probably prevents most of us from preparing this at home!

But what if I told you that you don’t really need a claypot to enjoy claypot rice? In this recipe, I will show you how you can easily make claypot rice in an ordinary saucepan that most of us would have in the kitchen!

The key to a great claypot rice is that soccarat ie the charred crusty bits of rice that are stuck at the bottom of the claypot! To produce the soccarat, it is important to cook the rice in the saucepan itself instead of using pre-cooked rice. The reason is that when you cook the rice in the saucepan, the rice lies flat on the pan as it cooks, so you have a larger area of contact between the rice and the pan.

USA Calrose Rice

Although jasmine rice is classically used for this dish, we found that USA Calrose Rice works very well too! This results in a rice which is a more plump and moist. Calrose Rice is a short to medium-grain rice that is very versatile and can be used also to make other rice dishes like wok hei prawn fried rice, seafood pao fan, and